


How Bright the Path Goes

by ishie



Category: True Grit (2010)
Genre: Community: trope_bingo, Gen, Trope Bingo Round 3, Twenty-Four Hours to Live
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-01
Updated: 2014-06-01
Packaged: 2018-01-27 20:05:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1720901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishie/pseuds/ishie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Ain't no sweet about her," Cogburn grumbled. "She was the sourest child any man ever suffered to live, though she did have some cause for it, I suppose."</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Bright the Path Goes

**Author's Note:**

> For the trope "twenty-four hours to live" with my thanks forever to the Coens for making Rooster Cogburn send the letter instead of Little Frank. No thanks to them or Portis for the endless crying I've done over this story though.
> 
> Title is from Iris DeMent's "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" from _True Grit_ , naturally.

On their arrival in Independence, Missouri, Rooster Cogburn set aside his bottle long enough to ask if anyone in the company had paper and an ink pen they would give him the use of. When no one volunteered the materials, one of the women—who shared Cogburn's bed on those rare occasions when he was sober enough to look for company—took several fifty-cent pieces from his bags and purchased both for him in town, along with a fresh supply of gin which she kept for herself.

After the first show, Cole Younger found Cogburn sitting near the cook tent. Sweat poured in great streams down Cogburn's face, which was nearly as red as the paint on John Yellow Elk's. The marshal wheezed like a leaking bellows and his fingers were swollen with the heat. The strap of his eyepatch cut deep into the folds of his face and disappeared beneath his thinning hair. With great difficulty, he seemed to try to force his disorderly scrawl to a more gentlemanly form, but he labored long and loud over each word. 

Frank James sat nearby, a wreath of sweet smoke over his head, slowly spelling out the occasional word at Cogburn's request, which Cogburn impatiently copied down with the same mistakes he would have made without the help.

"Seems a mess of trouble to convince an old sweetheart to come visit," Cole said to him. 

"Ain't no sweet about her," Cogburn grumbled. "She was the sourest child any man ever suffered to live, though she did have some cause for it, I suppose."

"Your daughter? I thought you had no family."

"Daughter? Ha!" Cogburn crowed, then coughed so hard his face purpled. He tried to drown it with long pulls from his flask. "I have no daughter. Only a son who has never pretended to be anything but a stranger to me."

Cogburn's hands looked bluish and waxy even under the hot summer sun. Cole looked at Frank, who looked back at him and puffed on his cigar and said nothing. 

"Not a daughter, not a sweetheart... Why write to this disagreeable cussed child then? If you want for arguing, it is not for lack of trying. A man has only to say a word to you in the wrong manner, which changes from day to day. Why, today it might be 'brazier' which sets you off, or 'corncob' even."

"Been a long time," Cogburn said, stubborn in his refusal to rise to Cole's teasing. "I've grown old and fat. Fatter even than my father, who was such a glutton he could have eaten an entire ham and asked where was his dinner. Memphis, Frank?"

He slowly wrote out M-e-m-f-u-s instead of what Frank spelled for him, but his hand paused too long at the end. The ink spread quickly through the cheap paper. It left a large black splotch the size and nearly the shape of the lead shot Cole still carried in his thigh. Cogburn cursed at it, seemingly out of long habit rather than any real feeling.

"I would see her again, and make my peace with her if I can," Cogburn said after another long drink. 

His voice was rougher now, weaker too, even accounting for the long illness that had been sapping him of all his vitality as they moved further south. Cole had to lean in close to hear him over the wind that had kicked up. Frank turned his cigar over and over in his fingers and watched the trees move. 

"I have meant to," Cogburn went on, "all these years. Even when I rambled alone in the west, that voice of hers was gnawing at me like a rat until I could not bear it. She has been a plague to me beyond any woman I ever took to marry. But I would see her again and give her news of one of our acquaintance, who has risen well beyond his station in life. And I would settle what little I have left on her if she will have it, in place of that son who claims not to know me, though I would not claim him if he did."

He pulled a flyer from beneath the paper he had scribbled on—one of those that had been printed and should have gone on an earlier train with the advance man. He put it with his note into an envelope and sealed it, then fumbled in his pockets until he found a coin that had escaped the earlier purloining. 

"Reckon there's time for someone to post this before the next show."

Cole agreed and took the letter, putting it into his pocket and buttoning it closed while Cogburn watched closely with his eye. When he had seen it done, Cogburn nodded and put his hat on his head. It took a great deal of puffing and straining for him to stand. Cole had seen Cogburn once, years before, lift another man straight into the air and throw him a good ten feet, but now he was drained by the effort of moving that great bulk of belly and hair and whiskey. 

"I would make my peace with her," Cogburn said again, his voice strong and young once more, but only for a moment which would soon pass. "I thought my trail would run on a while longer, but this night hoss is riding me hard."


End file.
